Puppet
by lostmoonchild
Summary: Shinobi were puppets for their Kage.  Kankuro was no different.


lostmoonchild: Hi! Personally I like Kankuro and think that as one of the Sand Siblings, he doesn't get much attention since they don't really focus on him. Of course with Temari and Gaara as his siblings, that's no real surprise. Anyway, here we go!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto so don't sue.

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><p>Puppet<p>

He wasn't entirely sure when he first developed an interest in puppets but he had a sneaky suspicion that it began at a very early age. Probably when their mother had been alive and was able to shield them from a majority of their father's wrath. Temari had dolls then and he was certain there was a picture of him somewhere as a toddler with strings "tied" around the doll's arms and legs. He was even certain that there was a picture of Temari pummeling him with a paper fan as he tried to make the makeshift puppet defend him against her.

He knew Temari's fascination for fans had started because of their mother so he didn't know where the puppet fascination came from. Maybe their chakra types had something to do with what they chose for weapons. Temari's chakra type was wind so maybe that's why she chose a fan. He didn't know for certain.

One thing that he knew for absolute certain was that after their mother's death, his puppetry had taken a whole new meaning. Temari's dolls had been thrown away and he had been given a real puppet that was heavier than he was. It was only when he had been given the puppet had everybody began to tell him that shinobi were the puppets of the Kage. The moment they stepped foot into the Academy for training was the moment they ceased to be human. That was the moment they became a puppet.

Determined to never let himself be used as he had seen a few puppet masters use a puppet, to be used as he saw they wanted to use Gaara, Kankuro threw himself further into his puppets. He made Karasu with his own two hands and cast aside the puppet his father wanted him to use. He was the puppet master in their dysfunctional household and he was god to his puppets the same way that their father was god to Suna's shinobi.

He had been content with knowing that he was a puppet for his father's deeds, that he and his brother and sister were nothing to the Kazekage. Kankuro was even content with knowing that when he stood next to his brother and sister, he was often the one that was overlooked. That tended to happen when one's sister was a knockout wind mistress and the little brother was a homicidal psychopath. With brown hair and dark eyes, he was probably the most average sibling between the three of them.

He loved it since he looked so average no one realized how deadly he was with his puppets.

Temari and Gaara could keep their given chakra elements just as long as he could keep being the puppet that controlled puppets. He didn't care that his little brother was now his puppet master. The redhead didn't care to treat people as their father had. Puppetry was an art that their father hadn't cared about. In order for the puppets to work to their full potential, care needed to be taken to ensure that they were in perfect working conditions.

Playing nonstop mental games and trying to assassinate a "failed experiment" wasn't the way to go. He hoped that their father saw that now in whichever level of Hell he was currently burning in. Maybe they even made up a new level for husbands and fathers that murdered their wives and children or even attempted to assassinate their child. If that happened, then Kankuro prayed that there was a puppeteer Hell for Sasori.

Even thinking of the deceased master of puppet masters irritated the brunette to no end. He remembered the days when he had looked up to the legendary Sasori of the Red Sand, striving to be as great as the master of puppet masters one day. Hours spent in training, bones broken and cuts adorning his body. He had even gone without sleep a few times trying to make his puppets worthy of, perhaps one day, being regarded as something that even Sasori would use in battle.

Now the thoughts of being anything like Sasori sickened him. He didn't care what the circumstances were; one just didn't turn another human being into a puppet. When he heard what Sasori had been doing, what he had done to the _Third Kazekage_, he had been so nauseated that he almost had Sakura check to make sure all the poison was gone from his body. In the end it was just his own disgust at Sasori that drove him to prove that you didn't need to turn humans into puppets to become great.

Kankuro had once been content with the idea of being a puppet for his Kazekage to use and now he knew for certain that he was a brother that willingly served his brother. He would always be content with knowing that he was underestimated because he didn't use chakra like his knockout wind mistress of a sister or his sand wielding formerly homicidal psychopath Kazekage brother. His skills as a puppeteer, however, would earn him a reputation unlike anything those who had walked before him had ever earned.

For some, yes, he would always be a puppet but one thing that Kankuro knew was that even a puppet had its own heart and soul just as the puppeteer did.

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><p>lostmoonchild: I'm kind of frowning at the ending but I can't really think of much else to put as an ending. Each puppet has its own personality, I think, so maybe the ending's okay. So I'm gonna vanish and get excited for work tomorrow. Read and review!<p> 


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